Home sales in January were significantly higher than a year ago, and although prices are also up compared to last year, they’re still nowhere near their peak.
Data from the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) showed that the whole region is experiencing higher sales after a slow fall and winter.
Last month, 71 single-family homes sold in Langley, up 57.8 per cent from the number sold in the same month in 2023. There were 58 townhouse sales, a 75.8 per cent jump year-over-year, and 67 condo sales, a 39.6 per cent increase.
It was a big difference from a year ago. January of 2023 saw some of the lowest sales numbers for a decade.
Local realtor Kim Phillips reported a lot of activity in the last few weeks.
“Yesterday I had five new clients reach out,” she said.
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There are also a significant number of people getting pre-approved for mortgages, she said. After a long slow period, people are getting back into the housing market as interest rates have dipped a bit from their peak.
“I’m seeing more upsizes, because the detached properties have come down a lot in price from before,” Phillips said.
This year, the number of new listings and active listings was higher for all three types of housing than it was a year earlier as well.
Prices were higher than a year earlier, but 12 months ago the housing market had almost bottomed out after repeated interest rate hikes.
In January, the benchmark price for a single family home in Langley was $1.58 million, up 8.6 per cent year over year, but down 1.3 per cent from December.
The benchmark price for a townhouse was $849,800, up 6.9 per cent from January 2023, but down 0.6 per cent from last month.
Condo’s were going for a benchmark price of $596,700, up 7.9 per cent year-over-year, and up just. 0.1 per cent from the benchmark in December.
“With January sales on the rise, we are seeing hopeful signs that optimism is returning to the market,” said Narinder Bains, chair of the FVREB. “Anticipating that we may be at the end of the Bank of Canada rate hike cycle, it appears that more buyers are considering re-entering the market as we are starting to see more traffic at open houses.”
Across the region in January, active listings were up by four per cent compared to December, and 18 per cent higher than January of 2023, for all housing types combined.
The Bank of Canada’s key overnight interest rate went through multiple increases, but has stabilized at five per cent since last year.
With expectations that there could be a few rate cuts this year, mortgage rates have begun to inch down from their peaks, making home buying slightly more affordable.
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After a huge spike during the first two years of the pandemic, home prices drew back starting at the end of 2022 and during early 2023, when the Bank of Canada began raising interest rates to fight inflation.
Locally, prices peaked around May 2022, when the FVREB statistics found a benchmark price for a single family home was more than $1.8 million. Townhouses were selling for over $900,000, and condos were just under $600,000.
